Mac sales continue to climb faster than the overall PC market. And as the …

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Though Mac sales have long been eclipsed by the sales of Apple's mobile devices, the company is reportedly on track to break the 5 million Mac mark for the holiday quarter. A major factor in Apple's sales growth is the svelte MacBook Air, which is slowly taking a larger part of Apple's notebook sales and has lit a fire under Windows PC vendors who are scrambling to offer similar "ultrabook" machines.

While Apple still struggles with single digit marketshare globally among all PC vendors, sales of Macs have steadily increased over the last few years. Mac sales have outgrown the overall PC market for 32 consecutive quarters, and grown to 4.89 million units—a 26 percent year-over-year increase—in the most recent September quarter.

That kind of growth is expected to continue for the holiday quarter, according to early figures released by market research firm IDC. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster noted that sales for October alone are already up 19 percent year-over-year. Currently, he is predicting a 23-26 percent increase for the entire holiday quarter, or sales of 5.1-5.3 million Macs.

A 5.3 million Mac quarter could also put Apple within spitting distance of becoming one of the top five computer vendors globally, possibly grabbing as much as 6 percent of the overall PC market. Asus took the number 5 spot in the third quarter with 5.7 million units; like Apple, it has been growing sales far faster than the rest of the PC market.

A large part of Apple's recent Mac sales success seems to rest on the shoulders of its smallest computer, the MacBook Air. According to Morgan Stanely analyst Katy Huberty, MacBook Air sales were hovering at about 8 percent of Apple's notebook sales in June and July, but shot up to 25 percent following the Sandy Bridge update in July. MacBook Airs have continued to increase their share of Apple's portable mix, climbing to 28 percent in October, according to IDC data. That currently makes the MacBook Air responsible for about 5 percent of Apple's overall revenue—not too bad considering the Airs are also Apple's cheapest notebooks.

Part of the jump may be due to the discontinuation of Apple's entry level white MacBook at the same time as the MacBook Air update in July. Sales of the machines were already dwindling, however, as the $999 11" MacBook Air cost the same as the much larger and heavier $999 white MacBook.

The 2010 MacBook Airs were already popular due to the thin but sturdy aluminum unibody, light weight, and fast SSD. The 2011 revision added high performance Sandy Bridge processors on par with their desktop counterparts as well as the high-speed Thunderbolt peripheral port. The combination meant that many users could abandon heavier MacBook Pros or desktop Macs for ultimate portability without significantly sacrificing performance.